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My experience at Baruch College has just met my expectations. I did not expect much from it to begin with. Before starting college in the end of summer, I felt uneasy at first, but as soon as my first real day was over, I felt a good sense of peace and joy. However it is interesting to note that there is a one dollar pizza store near the school. That store seemed like a complete mirage to me at first for two reasons: Pizza is usually more than twice that amount, and the store is in midtown Manhattan. Unfortunately for me, the pizza was smaller than average, but nonetheless it was still worth it.
My first semester at Baruch was okay. The classes along with work almost go the best of me. At first, I did not expect to have a job during the school year. Classes were okay. I hated Calculus, no surprise to me because I always had an extremely antagonistic attitude towards any math class. English was boring, but the professor is not a strict grader. My essays make no sense to me, and I always feel bad for the person who has to read my work. Anthropology was a very interesting and fun class, I got many good laughs in the class that I do not get in any other class. Public Administration was boring as well, but I get to look out the window. U.S. history is really boring, however I always find time in that class to crack jokes to my nearby classmates. I have been trying and putting some effort to my classes, but math requires more effort than two of the other classes combined. Originally I saw myself as an extremely productive student that would do anything to get a good score. But I realized if I were to walk down this path, I would become incredibly angst ridden and depressed reminiscent of a time in my high school years. I don’t think risking my morality and my mental health is worth it. Instead I opted to just go with the flow and accept things for what they are. Life is short; I do not want to spend it in depression. A B is enough for me. And a passing grade in math will make me real happy. I made some good friends and had many good laughs throughout.
If I were able to do things differently in the first semester, not much would be different. The only thing off the top of my head is the textbooks. The textbooks were too damn expensive. Although many of the professors asked to buy them, most of the textbooks were useless. For math, the professor never checked the hw and practice problems can be found online. The English textbook is a joke because there is much more information than what needs to be learned. Furthermore everything in the book can be found online in a more concise form. The public administration books were by far the most useless because the teacher made the students do reading summaries that basically got what needed to be learned. I feel like a complete dumbass for making this purchase. The anthropology book was another waste of money because it was required for the students to only read a few chapters, mostly at the beginning of the semester. The US history textbook was the most useful, but still relatively useless because the tests in class are very minute in detail and do not require a lot of information.
I did not expect to have a job during the semester. This only added more angst to my agenda. But most importantly, Baruch College changed my idea of money. Before entering the first semester, I was relatively frugal. After the first weeks of the semester, I felt poor despite the fact that I had a salary from work and savings. Even though I had more money than ever before in my life, I felt that if I were to spend a little of it I would fall into debt. There I had a revelation: wealth is not of the pocket, but of the heart and mind. I come from a relatively wealthy family and I have a salary which few college students have, but I still feel financially poor. For this reason, a career in finance seems logical to me. I have yet to spend any money from my salary, and I probably won’t in a long time. Food comes first though, good thing I got that 1 dollar pizza place 😉